Standing Waters

As an accompanying event will on 22nd of June at 7.00 pm take place a performative intermedia installation Souvenir. It is produced in cooperation with the Platform 1-12 from Topoľčany.

The solo
show of Mária Čorejová Standing Waters at
Bratislava City Gallery presents a selection from her latest drawing series Days of Anger (2015-2016), Brave World (2016-2017), Standing Waters (2017) and Drawing Restraints (2017), together with
the objects by architect Miriam Šebianová Sweet Home (2017). Mária continues to
develop her authentic authorial programme prevalently in the technique ink on
paper. On the white surface of the paper sheet the objects are assembled in
such constellations of which one exclusive interpretation would put us in
danger of getting stuck in the shallows.

Days of Anger, referring with its title to the
classic of Slovak literature, consist of representations of both everyday
objects and universal symbols of our cultural
circle, for example bread or boat. Things which are burnt, burning, flowing, or
are drowning in themselves, produce the instant feeling of worry about the
change of their state and/or state of matter. Mária adapts her technique – this
time very soft pencil drawing and scratched black wax – so that she reaches
more dramatic contrast, feeling of loss of security after being hit by imaginary
lightning of anger.

The newest Drawing Restraints, to which Miriamresponds
with Sweet Home, are at first sight
thematically alike to Days of Anger.
On the other hand, as the title suggests, Mária reflects on the possibilities
and limits of the drawing media. She does not take into account only its
preconditions as space demarcation – paper edges, or its fundamental flatness.
At the same time she doubts if there is actually
really something except nothing behind the picture. Metal construction of
Miriam's objects shaped as houses delineates in the third dimension a certain
physical and ideological space, in the similar way like Mária's drawing line.
Borders of this space are interrupted with motifs from Mária's usual
repertoire, for example balloon or animals, which are searching for their place
in the framework of unclear borders between private and public space. Artists
are inviting us to take a look at their relationship, its sweet ups and downs,
its fragility similar to the sugar walls of one of the little houses.

Christian
symbolism and church as religious archetype is emerging in Mária's œuvre
regularly, last time in the series Stations
of Crisis. In the newer Brave World the artist directs our gaze into the interior of sacral architecture: to the
naves, transepts and chapels of the cloisters and cathedrals from Middle Ages.
These are without doubt the most monumental material and artistic
manifestations of the Christian tradition in Europe. She brings various strangeobjects
and phenomena to these spaces and therefore disturbs the genre impression of
the drawings. Indeed, these depictions of church interiors denote more
metaphysical than physical space, but deprived of its divine aura represented
by the light coming through the colourful glass windows. In these mute
skeletons are the fragments of the secular world trapped in the iconic black
matter/fluid. The artist shifts the discussion to the framework of thinking
about systems (religious, social, cultural), about their borders,
confrontations and overlaps. According to legends, at the beginning of the
world there was light. And at the beginning of the art/painting there was a
line drawn alongside the shadow.

The series Standing Waters (California Dreaming) is
an outcome of Mária's this-year microresidency in California, US. Right on
spot, in plein-air of the West Coast
of America, Mária recorded lonely moments of the group of artists by the means
of extremely reduced drawing. It is in no way depiction of impression, neither
of shades of feelings. She literally inscribed the static character of the
certain moment almost out of time, making visible another here and now beyond the hurry of everyday life.

Souvenir is a new form of study, research and presentation of
interdisciplinary work of art, which is not taking itself too seriously.
Souvenir is something that a person brings from somewhere or is being

given by somebody else. The chosen artists, who are representing various
fields of art (visual art, literature, architecture, dance, sound art,
multimedia), have met, worked and collected their souvenirs from various places
in Slovakia. Alongside the reflection on the chosen places they were given a
chance to appropriate something from the discipline of other artists or a
manner how to present themselves to the audience. The aim was to work as a
unified group ego in the collective balance of the media. Participating artists
got a possibility to confront themselves and their work in the dialogue with other
forms of art. The group produced improvised work of art around staged elements
of solid construction. Participating artists: for architecture Eva Andrášová,
for drawing Mária Čorejová, for dance and choreography Tomáš Danielis, for
art-arrangement Zuzana Novotová-Godálová, for literature Zuzana Husárová, for
music Ľubomír Panák, for multimedia Jakub Pišek (Zuzana Novotová-Godálová,
translated by Miroslava Urbanová).

Ing. arch. Miriam Šebianová (*1972)
graduated from the Department of Architecture at Slovak Technical University in
Bratislava. She is a freelance architect. She participated in the design
of several buildings in Slovakia or abroad. Besides architecture she creates
art objects (she collaborated with M. Čorejová more times) and she also works
as illustrator (Silvia Plath: Čarovný oblek Maxa Nixa, publishing house
f.a.c.e., 2016).

Miroslava Urbanová (*1991) studies art
history at University of Vienna. She finished her bachelor degree at Comenius
University in Bratislava. She works as freelance curator, curator and assistant
at the gallery Loft8 in Vienna, external lecturer at Slovak National Gallery
and Danubiana. She is a member of the art collective Frustracija.

The production of artworks for this exhibition was
supported from the public resources by Slovak
Arts Council.

The exhibition was supported by grant programme Ars bratislavensis 2017.

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